Mia Nakaji Monnier is a writer in Los Angeles, focusing on essays and journalism about art, crafts, and culture. Her work has appeared in The Boston Globe; BuzzFeed; O, The Oprah Magazine; Shondaland; The Washington Post; and more. She is a 2021 Idyllwild Writers Week Nonfiction Fellow.
The daughter of a Japanese mother and a white, American father, Mia grew up moving frequently across the country and has lived in places including Texas, Illinois, Washington, Vermont, and Kyoto, Japan. Because of her shifting sense of home, she’s always interested in exploring questions of identity, place, code-switching, and narrative authority.
In 2017, Mia co-founded The Blend, a vertical at HelloGiggles dedicated to mixed-race and multicultural identity. Before that, she was the online editor at Japanese American community newspaper The Rafu Shimpo and a fiction reader at Guernica Magazine. She has a Master of Professional Writing (MPW) in Nonfiction from the University of Southern California and a BA in Japanese Studies from Middlebury College.
She also tests knitting patterns for designers and yarn companies and teaches classes at a local yarn shop. One of her new essays will appear next summer in a book about women of color in crafts.
The daughter of a Japanese mother and a white, American father, Mia grew up moving frequently across the country and has lived in places including Texas, Illinois, Washington, Vermont, and Kyoto, Japan. Because of her shifting sense of home, she’s always interested in exploring questions of identity, place, code-switching, and narrative authority.
In 2017, Mia co-founded The Blend, a vertical at HelloGiggles dedicated to mixed-race and multicultural identity. Before that, she was the online editor at Japanese American community newspaper The Rafu Shimpo and a fiction reader at Guernica Magazine. She has a Master of Professional Writing (MPW) in Nonfiction from the University of Southern California and a BA in Japanese Studies from Middlebury College.
She also tests knitting patterns for designers and yarn companies and teaches classes at a local yarn shop. One of her new essays will appear next summer in a book about women of color in crafts.
Interviews
Selected Mentions
InStyle - Longreads - artist Jen Hewett's newsletter - Women Who Submit - Slate France - Asian American Writers' Workshop - The Ringer - Curator: The Museum Journal - Hyperallergic
Workshops
Tin House Craft Intensive: The Very Short Essay with Melissa Febos, 2019
Readings & Panels
Japan-America Student Conference, 2019
Exposition Review Vol. IV Launch, Skylight Books, 2019
Associated Collegiate Press Convention, 2018
Japan-America Student Conference, 2017
Little Tokyo Book Festival, 2016
Mixed Remixed Festival, 2016
Exposition Review Vol. IV Launch, Skylight Books, 2019
Associated Collegiate Press Convention, 2018
Japan-America Student Conference, 2017
Little Tokyo Book Festival, 2016
Mixed Remixed Festival, 2016